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- [Rusty] Our dearly beloved vinyl records
have been stimulating listeners and collectors
since the 1800s.
Last year in the United States alone,
vinyl sales were over 1000% higher than a decade prior.
How did this sexy little piece of plastic come to be,
and how has it evolved over the ages?
Sit back and relax.
We're about to take you for a spin.
(upbeat groovy music)
- When vinyl was the only format, the record came out
and it sounded like what it sounded like.
- Vinyl was the thing that we sell the most
of and that's how we stay in business and...
- What I would say a vinyl is you get
this great moment in time that the artist
wanted to present to you.
- [Pete] I think that people enjoy vinyl
because they enjoy a tangible product.
- Some kids grew up in a vinyl home.
And so they got a turntable
and they're stealing their parents' records.
There's other kids that had no connection to it whatsoever.
And so to them, it's a brand new thing.
It's like a new technology.
- All ages, any age,
loves the feeling of coming to a record store,
browsing through the records.
- 'Cause it's not just side A and side B.
It's the sequence of the song.
- Like to be able to pick up a record.
- Dudes come in with gray hair and they go,
"You're playing that on vinyl?
I used to have that record."
People who like to tell you
that they used to have that record.
- Remember having a single by this fella called Hawkwind.
Something called Silver Machine.
I thought, what a strange name for the bloke.
- Boom, you drop down the records.
You just won. (laughs)
- Genesis Seconds Out, and I was off school.
I thought, well I'll borrow that and give it a listen.
And it was super ready.
I put the wrong side, I didn't put side one up
put side three on, which is the whole, the Soviet
that was the solely, the second of Genesis.
I don't know, my God. (laughs)
- Anyone would just love to come into a record store.
- [Dave] The appeal of it is the records
that they're actually, it's a good size.
It's like it fits in your hands.
- [Sharone] Something special about it.
- If Spotify goes away, if there's the big electronic blip
and all your MP3s get burned out
or how many people have lost hard drives
of all their MP3s over the years?
A record is something that sits around forever.
- Everything you watch on television,
there's always a record player.
- Like when vinyl was coming back, I could tell
because all of a sudden you would see it
in TV shows and in commercials.
- I swear every show, every movie now that's been made
in the last five, six years.
- Hey, it's cool.
They're listening to records.
- [Rusty] Emile Berliner launched
the first 78 gramophone record in 1889.
The first vinyl discs were made
for playback a 33 1/3 RPM
and pressed on to 12 inch diameter, flexible plastic desks.
These however were commercial flop
due to consumer hesitance during the great depression.
However, in 1939
Columbia Records expanded the realms of vinyl technology.
And in 1948, Columbia introduced a 12 inch long play
33 RPM micro groove record AKA the birth of the LP.
- I mean, I guess there's two things.
There's the listening experience, which I've compared to,
it's more like watching a film
where I think digital audio
is more like watching reality TV.
- I'll give you an example
like just looking through like this box of records
and seeing a Bruce Springsteen record, a steely Dan record
- I think it was Bon Jovi, I bought a 45.
My mom would buy a 45 records tour.
- You like start to think about that song.
You start to think when that song came out,
when was the first time you heard that song?
And it just brings back emotions and memories.
And that's what's really special
about music in general.
- Vinyl, when it was first created, you know
you could have, you know, you can listen to a band at home.
You didn't have to go
out to some place to see musicians play,
to hear a song or listen to it on the radio.
You could actually listen to the actual songs
of the actual people you wanted to hear at any time.
- But when you listen to a vinyl record, it's like sitting
down and watching like a foreign film with subtitles
where you, if you enjoy that thing
you have to really pay attention to it.
- I like the experience.
I love the experience of dropping the needle
on the record and having to go back
and, okay record's done,
gotta flip it over, clean it
it's sort of, more of a ritual thing.
- And then you get up and you flip the record.
It's kind of like a little intermission
and you listen to it like the artist in intended.
(gentle music)
- [Rusty] It was Columbia Records engineer,
Peter Carl Goldmark who first sat with his team of engineers
in 1939 to evolve the 78 RPM record
and move forward to 33 1/3 RPM
extend playback time to more than 20 minutes per site
and trim vinyl groups down to an accessible,
acceptable millimeter size.
This stroke of genius changed music forever.
And the rest, as they say is history.
- When you put on a record
you are putting on a specific artist.
- There is a frill when you buy that record
for the record when it arrives for me,
sometimes my hands are shaking.
- With vinyl, there is something,
it goes deeper than just nostalgia.
- And I can't wait to get back to my parents' house
"and take their copy of, Are You Experienced"
Jimi Hendrix's record because there's a specific skip
in one of the songs that I can't hear the song
without that skip, and I need that copy,
'cause I'll never be able to hear the song
right again, unless I get that.
And that's another thing I love about vinyl.
- And you have all the cool bonus stuff.
You've got line, you know
giant liner notes and big artwork.
And it's just so much more engaging
than listening to digital streaming.
- You know, that that $15, $20, $25 you're spending
at the march table or buying off a band camp
or buying at a local record store
is supporting somebody within your community.
- I don't really care whether the record is beat up
or has scratches on 'em.
I have a memory of finding it and that memory stays
with me whenever I see the record, you know?
- It's like "Rumors," Fleetwood Mac recap.
It's been like 10 years
we sell it probably more than anything else.
And you know, just when you think like there's no way
anyone else in the world could need that record
have a look and we're almost out of it.
And I have to order like a ton more and...
- No one really cared about CDs.
CDs were cool because you could put a bunch
in an envelope and take them to your car.
And they were portable,
but there was nothing sexy about them.
Like no one, you know, like, no one's excited
about the 3000 CDs they have on a rack in their living room.
No one cares about that.
- No matter how expensive it is,
I might be able to buy the album for two pounds on the CD.
I'm not interested.
I just want the real deal.
- Experience of seeing someone play vinyl
and gets people to talk about it.
And it gets people to come
up to me and say, "I have that record."
Or, "I used to have that."
Or "Do you have this version of that record?"
Oh, the German Pressing is so much better than this
it can bring up so much conversation.
(gentle music)
- [Rusty] You don't have to go far to find a record store
in all four corners of the world
coast to coast, high and low.
There's always a little place you can find
that will deliver the goods.
Just like this one, in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois.
(gentle music)
- I'm Dave Crane.
I'm the owner of Dave's Records
at 2,604 North Clark in Chicago.
We're in the Lincoln Park neighborhood
about a mile and a half south of Wrigley Field.
(gentle music)
You can come in and shop
but we're just doing, in the middle of doing an interview.
You don't have to go away.
Okay, some people don't wanna be on camera.
(gentle music)
I got into the record store business 35 years ago,
I got a job at a chain store
called Musicland, which no longer exists
back when records were actually still the top format.
The first day on the job I unboxed about 500 copies
of Michael Jackson thriller.
I kept cutting open the boxes go,
"More thriller."
So there, I found an ad in the paper for a job
at this chain, which used to be called Second Hand Tunes.
And I worked for the original owner.
He sold it to an internet company.
They went bankrupt out of the bankruptcy in 2002.
I bought the store
so I've owned it as Dave's Records for about 20 years.
But, I've been working here forever for 35 years.
I think the favorite part
of the vinyl business is on any given day
I can have new information brought to me
a new record will come in, I've never seen it before.
I'll pick it up and go,
"This looks more interesting than what I think."
I don't know anything about this.
And then you put it on and it's terrible,
"Oh my God, how do people not know about this record?"
So there's always more to learn with records.
And you know, I think with records
it's like some things bring you back to, you know
when you were a teenager, it brings you back
to times in your life and with music itself
the thing I love about it is it's a very emotional
tied to the actual sound.
You know, there are certain songs you hear
that it's like, "Oh yeah, that was that party."
You know, so I think music itself,
whether it's on vinyl or in any format
I think the music itself is just such an emotional
and important thing in all of our lives.
Don't worry, you can just shop around us.
We're just doing an interview, ignore us.
You're not mic'd, we won't put you on. (laughs)
(gentle music)
We've been buying records for 35 years at this store.
There's never been a time where it's like,
"Oh my God, what am I gonna do?
Where vinyls come from?"
So I'm just at the point now
where if people have stuff to sell, I mean
just before you came in,
there was a guy that came in
and I got a stack of records here.
He's gonna come back later.
And, you know, that's how the used stuff comes in.
The new stuff, I have probably 10 to 15
different distributors, small and large
that we go to, to get the new stuff that's coming out.
So we have a good mix of both new and used.
The thing about the used stuff
is you never know, what's coming in.
Sometimes you get a great collection
but it also goes out super fast because like nowadays
most kids come in and they look through
our rock section and you know, it's predominantly new stuff
because the used stuff comes in and sells so fast.
It's like, how come there's not like this huge stash
of really cheap LEDs records
while it's like, because the minute they come in
they go right back out the door.
- [Rusty] This record store in Chicago
is just one of thousands and thousands
of independent vinyl merchants all over the world.
(gentle music)
Music stores have become something
of a pilgrimage for music fans,
travelers, DJs, window shoppers
and vinyl fanatics of all ages.
For so many, the grassroots independent record stores
are the lifeblood of the LP industry.
And we've gone to check some of them out.
- Hi, my name's Sharone, I'm from here, New York city.
And I own a record store.
(gentle music)
It's a family owned business.
We've been open for almost 50 years.
My parents started it in 1975.
They came here as immigrants and opened up a music store.
Though was a regular electronic store
in the seventies, in New York.
And if you're familiar with that time
there was many electronic stores on Seventh Avenue.
We were on Seventh Avenue at the time
and we kept records in the back.
So my dad started it.
And then once you saw that he can actually support a family.
He had my mom come from Israel, with my sisters
and everyone moved over here.
And my mom ran the record department.
My dad ran the electronics department
and then it became a record stores.
What happened in, I'd say it evolved in the eighties,
late eighties to early nineties, I've been doing this.
I probably took over
in around the 2000s, 2005 until now.
And then my parents had it up until then.
We put records every corner we can fit it
in this store, got to maximize the space, I suppose.
We're the number one DJ store in the world.
People come from all over and I'm happy
to say we were able to outlast and to stay a record store
to all of us and do all these times.
And we're carrying more records now
than we did 10 or 15 years ago,
even, so it's cool to keep vinyl alive, at least for us.
We evolved with the times
when we had to evolve with the times,
that's really the only way.
And we tried to do it being authentic to who we are.
And, that's what makes us so unique
in the sane age to have a store
like this in the heart of New York City.
My favorite part is really doing stuff for the community.
Getting to know the customers
talking to like everyone who comes in.
It feels like they know us and they have a good feeling.
And also the best part is they're doing something
for something they love.
Like we're selling the music and they're playing music
for people and they're playing music
for themselves because they just music,
you feel something with music.
And that's my favorite part of the job.
I love records.
I listen to them here
but I live in an apartment in New York city.
So I don't have that many at home,
space, you know.
- [Rusty] Rock and Soul Records in New York City
is one of the largest DJ record stores in the country.
And the term disc jockeys is still strongly associated
with the vinyl record.
Almost a century has gone by since the inception of vinyl
and with buzzwords like retro and vintage
the format owns the fat
there is by design inherently old school
but that didn't matter because vinyl was cool.
DJs have spun vinyl for decades
and they will be forever known
as the ones that made vinyl look good.
- I have been a DJ for over a decade.
I think I started in probably 2008, 2009, somewhere there
my interest in vinyl started,
actually I must've been a little bit older, maybe four
but whatever kindergarten ages, I should know that
but it was that and reel to reel tape
were probably the only mediums.
But my parents said vinyl.
I couldn't get into kindergarten where I was.
It was too full.
I was living in the sticks in Southern Ohio
family, they've done a farm.
So basically my parents would babysit me
by putting down in front of the record player.
I would pick out records and they would just play them.
And I have very vivid memories of the record,
what it looked like, the sleeve.
When I started deejaying
that's when my record collection expanded
from about 500 records to about 2,500, 3000 records
'cause I would always look for new stuff.
'Cause I never really wanted to spend the same thing
over and over.
And especially for the bartenders
'cause I didn't want bartenders to get bored.
My favorite part about deejaying is getting to look
through my thousands of records.
'Cause every time I go to a shift, I will spend a large part
of the day flipping through all of my records
and thinking about how I would like the evening to go.
Sometimes whatever is happening
during the day will inspire me.
I'll hear a song and I'll go,
"Wow, I wanna play that song."
And I have Spotify.
I have other streaming services I can't remember,
and I use those regularly
but I like to, especially in the morning,
put a record on,
it's also so that I can let my daughter know
that this is here and this is a good way to listen to music.
One of my favorite vinyl records is Fela Kuti
and Ginger Baker Live.
Especially for deejaying
that record is great 'cause you drop the needle
and you can go hang out and get a drink, use the bathroom.
It's always essential to have a bathroom record,
but that one is great.
'Cause you can take your time
'cause you can let it go the entire album side
and then flip it over and play the other
if you really gotta hang out with someone, but it's great.
It's just kind of all groove, bass and drums predominantly.
And it's just such a great record.
Well, I think that people are nostalgic for vinyl
because it's just how music was heard.
And we've all heard
that it's a great way to listen to music.
So I would always on my way to this one bar, I would DJ
I would go and I would stop
at Goodwill here in Oakland San Pablo Ave.
That became my favorite record store
'cause I've found easily over a thousand records
at that Goodwill.
So I look for everything
(gentles music)
- [Rusty] With every medium.
We always have to ask ourselves, why do we love it so much?
How did it steal our hearts and our ears?
For nearly a hundred years, vinyl lovers,
home stereo enthusiasts, 78 collectors
of all walks of life have made space
that they didn't even have to store these magical disks
that trigger our emotional nostalgia so poignantly.
Of course you can get all philosophical about it.
But the real question is simple.
Does vinyl really sound better?
- This kind of controversial, but people will say
that vinyl sounds better.
It may be true.
It just depends on your needle.
It depends on your speakers depends on your turntable.
It's not just the vinyl that sounds better.
Some vinyl sounds like, doesn't sound good at all
because it's not played on a good system.
- The Crunchy Poppy is the wear and tear on the record.
So like when it's been played a lot and there've been
you know, needles and there's wear and tear on a record,
it's gonna have surface noise.
- If you play a record a lot of times,
even if you have like a really nice record,
a really nice needle and a nice turntable
and all that kind of stuff, you know, it's gonna wear out
it's something touching something else and...
- We kind of take it for granted,
but a lot of these things, I mean,
it's unbelievable how they came up with it
and how it started.
- You know, a lot of people will ask
what does make vinyl sound better than digital?
And I always still come back
to the sense that it's a hundred percent Sonic.
I can take a record right now
drop that needle on it in a quiet room like this.
I don't even have to turn on the amplifier.
You're gonna be able to hear something, right?
(gentle music)
It's actually physical.
There's a needle rubbing over a bump,
that is creating that electronic impulse
that then sends it down the tone arm
and back to the tuner and into your speakers.
It's actually making that sound.
It's not just zeros and ones on a file.
So there's the warmth everybody talks about.
And vinyl is the sense
that it's actually its own instrument in many ways.
So that's the biggest differentiation
between digital and analog in my opinion
- I think vinyl sounds great
because you have a physical thing sitting
on a physical thing with another physical thing.
Like it was, it was all these parts, moving parts, yeah.
I guess it depends on what area you're looking at.
As a lot of times, music is produced
for vinyl and sometimes it's produced
for streaming and then it's pressed to vinyl.
So sometimes vinyl doesn't sound any better
than the streaming service.
- We do a lot of comparisons
of like original pressings
versus maybe a reissue on new vinyl.
And for the most part, they're either pretty close
the same or better, very rarely are they horrific.
Occasionally that's happened on a couple
of reissues of things, but for the most part
what we've compared and we like
one of our favorite things to do
is to compare a original copy with a re-issue
especially of nineties music,
'cause nineties records are hard to come by
the original ones.
And, people like to think that the new vinyl isn't as good
but really it is usually the same or better.
- Some vinyl sounds great
because that's how it was intended to be heard.
It was like I said, it was recorded
and produced and mixed with the vinyl experience in mind.
- There's definitely a lot of vinyl that I believe
is made just to satisfy customer demand,
vinyl where, it's sort of,
a vinyl product that's sort of an afterthought
because a label decided they needed to do a vinyl version.
So those are records where maybe they mastered the album
for CD and digital.
And then they ended up using the same exact master
to cut the records, which is surprisingly common
in this industry.
And sometimes those records can sound really good.
- From my experience, the cut,
how a record is cut is really important.
- What you're going to hear about today
is nothing short of a miracle.
It's dramatically new,
made possible only through years of research,
inventions and innovations.
Living stereo played on a record
through the all-new, two in one RCA Victors Stereo
Orthophonic High Fidelity Victrola.
- vinyl is actually short for polyvinyl chloride, PVC.
- [Pete] So when we say cutting a record
we're mastering first generation to make a vinyl record,
so we're actually cutting the music
into an aluminum plate covered with nitrocellulose lacquer
that is used,
essentially to simplify it,
it's used as the form for the pressing
of the production records.
- So what happens when you come out of a studio,
you go, you know, you have your raw mix, then they mix it.
And then it goes to a mastering guy, right?
- A band and producer would go in the studio.
They would work on mixes.
They would send those mixes
to the mastering engineer who would cut reference acetates.
And then if the producer in the band
wasn't happy with the way that reference record sounded
they would go back
and make mix changes to get it to sound right on the medium.
- And there's a differentiator
because sometimes people will come to us
and say, "Hey, I've had it mastered.
Do I need to have it mastered for vinyl?"
Yes.
- Full length, LPs that play at 33 1/3
And then there are 12 inch 45
like singles or maxi singles and...
- LP 12 inch seven inch.
- There definitely has to be different levels set
on how it translates into cutting the groove on vinyl.
- You're covering for what is it like 29.7 inches
at 33 1/3 and I know someone out there will fact check this
and yell at me.
But when you get to the center, you're covering
you're still moving at the same speed
but trying to fit that same amount
of music in half the space, roughly.
So that being said
like a seven inch product will never sound as good
as a 12 inch will cutting that same song
on the outside of a record.
So your audio quality decreases
as you get towards the inside of the record.
And that's just one of the physical limitations
of vinyl, the distortion increases
and the high frequency content dips down.
- Have you ever seen the microscopic view of a groove?
- [Man] I have.
- Okay, so you look at a microscopic photograph of a groove.
It's a V cut and one side's the left channel
one Side's the right channel.
There's little nubs all the way up and down.
And the needle sits down in the middle of it.
- There's only two ways a groove can move
and a groove is sort of shaped like a V.
So a groove moves laterally and vertically.
- So that's what a vinyl mastering guy
needs to figure out how if the high end
is gonna be able to go
if it ends up too high
it's not gonna be able to fit in the groove.
- So the depth changes, which is what we call vertical
movement and lateral movement moves the groove side to side.
So the way a vinyl record player decodes that movement
into stereo is that you've got your lateral movement
which is what we call our mano movement,
everything at the center and the vertical movement
which changes the depth of the groove
is stereo information off to the side.
So without getting into tons of detail,
sometimes too much low frequency content
on the sides can cause weird issues with the cut.
But in general, the low frequency content
causes the grooves to swing more
which takes up more space on a record.
- [Mark] Now, let's take another look
at our living stereo record groove
with its two separate soundtrack impressions.
One on each side,
in cross section, it looks like this,
a V-shaped groove, 45 degrees on each side.
Let's put our living stereo stylist in this groove.
As the record turns the right side of the groove
reproduces the sound from the left-hand section
of the orchestra, the left of the groove reproduces
the sound and the right hand section.
Now both at once, two totally different soundtracks
coming from one groove
on one record, with one stylist, this is Living Stereo.
- Vinyl on CD, probably streaming to the vinyl.
There was a certain point where the needle would jump off
of a song and it was, I don't know why,
just a frequency, I think it was a base frequency
really and this is a fault of ours.
Maybe we didn't pay enough attention to our test pressing
but either way, a good cut your needle
will stay on the record.
If the record is cut properly.
And that's actually really essential
'cause you don't want the needle jumping off.
- I mean, we can control sound here to a certain level
and every pressing plan can
but you're only as good as your cut.
- Mastering can at times be stressful
because we're the last people in the chain
to touch the product.
We're not allowed to make mistakes
we're the ones they pay to not make any mistakes.
So oftentimes by the time the project gets to mastering
it's already weeks behind schedule.
So there's a lot of pressure for us to get the job done.
- They're the real geniuses behind making a record.
Those guys, I always say,
that's where the magic happens.
- In the seventies RCA made these Dyna flex records
and I have Bowie records
that are Dyna flex records,
I think they're supposed to be more lightweight
but they're so thin that you can wobble them really easily.
And I imagine they work really easily too now
but the great thing about vinyl now is that no one
is making Dyna flex or anything remotely like that,
it's all high quality
180 gram or up.
So the records are really well pressed
and really nice vinyl.
So they're gonna stay for a long time.
- I know some people just leave the records
just like laying out, like, you know
they just put it on like
on top of the speaker or on a table or something.
And just even kind of shifting it around a little bit.
- [Mark] I've heard a lot of great music,
but I got one of my biggest musical thrills
visiting the Camden Plant of RCA Victor.
In that plant, guarded day and night
behind these huge steel doors,
I found a treasure house of music.
The originals of the finest records ever made by Victor.
The music of the world's greatest artists
of past and present.
- Process of making my own is tricky.
I don't really have any experience with it.
I have gone to a couple record presses.
There's one here in Oakland and the name is escaping me
but I know the process is a bunch
of little vinyl pellets that they put in
to this thing and it melts it and they press it.
And that's about as technical as can get.
- You know, initially records, you know
like most inventions, they morph over time.
You know, initial sound was on a cylinder
and the cylinder spun around, you know
they would put the grooves into a wax cylinder
and it would play.
And then eventually they found it was easier to press it
to a flatter surface, which they, you know
they made 78s old, 78s, which, you know
they were thick and hard and breakable
and you could put one song on each side
there wasn't room for much.
- [Mark] The first step I learned
is to pour a thin layer of molten wax onto a hot plate.
The beginning of the master record,
a hot flame melts all bubbles and floors out of the wax,
which is of the purest possible grade.
This is done in a sealed dust-proof and air conditioned room
where the temperature is thermostatically controlled.
- My children when they were growing up.
I had an old 78 player and a very simple way to show it
is like when an old 78 player like,
it has a steel needle that fits into the groove
and what that does.
There's a groove that's imprinted into the vinyl
the needle tracks that, and that creates a vibration
which goes up and vibrates the speaker.
- [Mark] Meticulous examination
ensures smooth perfection
before the wax has passed through a special slot
to the recording room.
The perfect lax has put on the turntable, a cutting point
called a stylist is adjusted and everything is ready
to record again.
The most popular selection ever caught on wax.
The sound engineer is ready.
The musicians are set, and I see a record made.
- Welcome to Smashed Plastic.
Come on in.
(door creaks)
what we do here is,
it starts out as PVC granulate.
So small little pieces of PVC, either brand new
or reground from previous jobs, we tend to use a mix
and those that's melted within the machine and add
you know, every varying between 250, 280 degrees,
it melts and creates a puck
that puck then will become the record.
It goes into the press with two labels with it.
It is secured with a center pin
and it comes together at 2200 PSI of pressure.
What makes our plant unique
and we were the first one
in the world to press with hot water rather than steam.
So we have a thermal unit that gets hot water
up to 280 degrees in a matter of seconds.
And we run hot water through our molds rather than steam.
It's a lot more environmentally friendly.
It's a lot more energy efficient, and it's much easier
than having a giant boiler room to maintain.
You know, it was the first question a lot
of people asked like,
"Oh, you're you're starting a fad business.
You know, this, they're getting cool again
it's just a fad."
I've been around music long enough to know
that vinyl collectors have been here all along.
And the one thing I kept saying to people was,
as long as we don't overstep our bounds
as far as how quickly we grow and become a huge plant
or something like that, and then the bubble bursts.
So I'll take you down here to the press
(static hissing)
as we're just getting things started up for the day.
So this is the process of getting prepped for the day.
As we're beginning to start a job,
this will be on, in about five minutes.
We're just warming it up now,
Steve's getting it all ready.
- [Mark] Two totally different soundtracks
coming from one group, on one record with one style.
This is Living Stereo.
It means that stereophonic recording
has been brought down from a relatively expensive hobby
into the price and convenience range of the average family.
Giving them the tremendous musical experience
of Living Stereo.
- So this is when the, when the records come off
they sit here for at least 12 hours
hopefully more like 24, they need to sit to cure.
So they end up insuring that they're flat.
That's why you see a cooling plate between them all
one, every five records.
(static hissing)
And that'll be getting them retail ready,
going through the shrink wrapper
and stickering on the back end.
So a lot of our day is getting these things ready
than package out the door.
We're actually kind of a by-product of the resurgence
because previous to really about a year,
well previous to about the five years ago
when we started investigating this
there were no new machines being produced.
So if you wanted to start a pressing plant
you either had to purchase somebody else's plant,
find old machines that hadn't been used for, you know,
10, 20 years that are gonna be in bad shape.
Then you have to find the engineer
to be able to fix those machines.
And a lot of those guys were aging
at the time and hard to find.
So that was kind of a non-starter for us.
We investigated it for a very short period
of time and realized that
we had to start a company with a new press.
(gentle music)
we've been open for about two years,
well this whole idea and the whole thing started
almost about five years ago.
I've been part of a local community radio station here
for the last 12 years.
And so being part of the local scene
and knowing bands and things like that,
I really realized that probably about five years ago,
people were having a really hard time
getting their vinyl made
they were waiting six months.
They were having a lot of issues.
And I knew there was nobody here in Chicago.
So it started me and another partner,
had my partner Matt and I just,
who's also one of my best friends
we just started a conversation
and he was kind of like, "Well, let's figure this out."
And that was literally five years ago.
And then it became two partners later.
And, you know, the four of us
just kind of keep kept stair-stepping
and trying to figure it out.
But yeah, it started about five years ago.
Up until we showed up as a pressing plant
here in town two years ago
I think there were a lot of people
that were kind of like, you know
"It's hard to get things done
and we have to go out of state and we have to, you know
if I have this crazy idea of like printing
on the backside of a record, who do I talk to?"
Well, now people can walk
into this room and actually physically talk
to somebody before they begin their projects.
So we have a lot of labels
and a lot of projects that wouldn't have existed
if Smashed Plastic hadn't opened their doors in Chicago.
I think, you know,
and that's what we take the most pride in here.
So I think those are kind of my favorite projects.
It was important for us to be in this building
because we wanted to have a vintage feel.
We wanted to be in the city first place.
We looked around all over the place
and we could have been in a collar suburb
for way cheaper and could have been
in one of those, you know what I'm talking about
those warehouse buildings that would have been sterile
But it would have been a nice place to do production.
This building is the former home
of the Hammond Organ company.
So the Hammond Organ was made here
from the turn of last century all the way up until 1985.
So it had this musical history,
our proximity to Avondale and Logan square,
where venues and bands live and play.
And we just felt like we wanted to be very close.
And so it was a no brainer to be in a building like this.
(gentle music)
Now, we can take a client from walking in here saying,
"Hey I just walked out of the studio.
What do I need to do?"
All the way to "Here is your retail ready product."
They don't know
that all those other processes are done elsewhere.
Some people come to us at different points in the process.
They might say, "Hey, I've already had this master diver.
And I had this plated."
But I always say my favorite part
about the job is handing records to people or putting them
in the back of their trunk or their car or whatever.
And that's the beauty of us being here.
A lot of, I mean, probably 85, 90% of our clients
are picking them up right here
and we're wheeling them out to their car
and placing them in their cars.
So we've eliminated
one of the biggest variables that a point
of contention for people doing vinyl is the shipping.
That to me is one of the coolest things in the world.
How many people get to sell a product
and actually see their client get super excited about it.
Half the time we can barely get bands out of here
'cause they come in and they stay for like two hours.
You know, they just sit here and they wanna talk
about their projects and all that.
That's part of the job.
So anyway, yeah, we built this bar because we wanted
to have a place where people could come in and listen
to their test pressings,
have a place to hang out and listen to music.
And that was what this room was all about.
And it's just kind of evolved into a little bit
of a fun space where now we've inherited all this
other equipment, like a jukebox and a pinball machine
from Bloodshot Records.
And it's just kind of a work in progress,
but it was essential for us to have a space
that can double as an office, a meeting area
and allow a place just to hang out.
It's even our lunchroom
- A sound is a strange thing.
Everybody has two pair of ears.
So that you can get crazy audio file
and there are guys that'll tell you
that they can set up a system with CDs
that you know, with the right equipment
and everything else, then it's gonna blow you away.
And it will, you know.
- So I told those things I suppose, are not understood.
I mean, a CD sounds fine,
vinyl, I think isn't it more of the taking the record
out to sleep, putting it on.
You can read the sleeve, which you can't on a CD
you've no idea who wrote that song or whatever
the magnifying glass isn't big enough.
- A lot of people drank the Kool-Aid
that vinyl just immediately sounds better.
And I would question that
I don't know that that's actually accurate.
It is true within a certain span of time, you know,
prior to I'd say 1955 or so,
they didn't really know what they were doing yet.
You know, so Bessie Smith recordings back in the day
they sounded pretty rough.
Once they actually figured out how to master vinyl.
Now they sound pretty darn good,
early CDs in the eighties, abysmal.
And by the time they figured out how to master CDs
to sound as good as the original vinyl,
we were already into a download culture
and it didn't matter and nobody cared.
And why would I buy a CD?
I can make my own CD.
- Vinyl itself, I think to most people
and most people's ears has a warmer sound to it.
It sounds more natural.
I think probably because it's coming off
a physical thing from a physical needle
to an electrical impulse that goes through the speakers
that, you know, that comes out and hit your ears.
Whereas with the digital sound
it's a cleaned up sound, you know,
and I think the imperfections of that sound,
it's more pleasing to me.
- I don't think it's necessarily inherent
to the format that it sounds better.
It's inherent to the intent.
- Funny one of our customers,
he is into lint means high end audio stuff, isn't it?
Spent thousands doing it all.
And he's always said to me, "Why don't you come
now that I've listened."
I've never gone round, but he asked someone else on.
I think it took him round.
He put on dark side of the moon,
the fellow listened to it.
When I sort of began to, I said,
"What did you think of that?"
He said, "I couldn't tell the difference."
- [Rusty] Vinyl's warmer fuller sound
comes from many factors
but it's largely due to its analog nature.
Before these albums can be released,
they have to go through additional processing
to ensure that they sound good.
This is all the hard work of the mastering engineers
and vinyl cutters.
These are the people that give vinyl that magical sound.
- [Man] A mastering engineer is a person
skilled in the practice of taking audio,
that has being previously mixed
in either the analog or digital domain as mono, stereo
or multi-channel formats and preparing it for use
and distribution, whether by physical media,
such as vinyl.
Mastering the vinyl is the process
of creating a separate master that can be cut
into a vinyl record without added unwanted distortion.
It consists of a mono stereo image up to 150Hz,
a tamed high-end, and if needed,
a track listing that is consistent with the frequency
limitations of record cutting.
- I've always loved vinyl records
as someone that grew up playing in bands
since the time I was 14 years old
I always just felt this attraction to vinyl.
And my star in music kind of came
up through the punk rock scene.
Later on in my life ass I started recording bands,
basically out of necessity
'cause I was always in bands
that could never afford to record.
I was with a friend that was getting some lacquers cut
and long story short.
I walked into the studio
and I met Richard Simpson who became my mentor.
And I saw my first lacquer get cut.
And it sort of changed the game for me.
I grew up listening to vinyl records.
My parents were music fans
especially when I was younger.
And that sort of got me started.
I was obsessed with music from an early age.
I remember from the time I was in second grade on,
all my extra money went to buying 45s, LPs and cassettes.
I became obsessed with heavy metal
until the transition between sixth and seventh grade.
And I heard punk rock for the first time.
It kind of changed my life.
I think when I met Richard,
when I sat in on the session
we just hit it off and he was really gracious
and he allowed me to stand up, get close to the lake.
He told me everything he was doing.
And I remember being really surprised.
I'm like, wow, you know, there's no barriers here.
He's totally, he appreciates the fact
that I'm interested in this.
- My name is Richard Simpson.
I'm a recording engineer/mastering engineer
for pretty much completely with vinyl these things.
I grew up in Long Island out in town called Hicksville
which was about 30 miles out of the city.
My father was the head engineer at RCA in New York.
So he would come home and he'd bring records home
that he was working on.
My era when I first was coming up
and with music was more of the Tommy Dorsey,
Glenn Miller, the swing kind of era.
I happened to be somebody who really,
I liked to dance from a kid on up.
And the music just always had an interest to me.
I was in the air force for four years.
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I went to art school for like a couple of semesters
and it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be.
So I went into the service
spent four years in the air force.
And when I got out
during that time I got married and I had one child.
We came back to New York city.
It helped to have my father
be one of the head guys at RCA.
So he got me an interview
and I got on and I started off at the bottom
like quality testing with sitting for defects.
And then the next step was to check the work
of the vinyl mastering engineers.
They came in in the morning and they have a rack.
We called it of 12 albums
or more that they had to cut during the daytime.
After they pressed a few thousand records
they had to come back and have a new master lacquer made.
And at that time the engineer would cut a one minute section
of the music on the outside, which allowed me to play it
because master is a cut on a 14 inch disc.
The music starts at 12.
So this a couple of inches for making a test cut.
They'd cut a one minute test of,
and then I compare that,
we keep in production cut, which would show
in the first minute that we had picks of plus two.
So I'd play that.
And if we were only getting zero, I'd go back and say,
"Hey we gotta raise the level up to match
what's out there.
What people are buying.
We don't wanna put a different record
out and have it sound lower or louder.
I started in 1966
the early years was a lot of big artists.
They were on RCA.
So one of my first groups I worked with was The Guests Who
and then The Monkees.
Well, Elvis was always coming up
and Lou Reed and David Bowie
they were my first exposure cutting records.
So I was involved in cutting a lot of those
but it was a lot of fun.
I never considered what I do work.
So it's been fun.
Well, RCA was cranking along and I was in New York
and they were opening up a new room in Hollywood.
So my boss at the time asked me
if I would be interested in transferring.
So at that time it seemed
like California was the place to go.
So I jumped at it.
I said, yeah, sure.
In the Hollywood studios, it was a little bit different.
It was more relaxed
and New York was more of a suit and tie thing.
And there was certain things you could do
and you couldn't do.
And it was just more relaxed.
We worked more hours and to my surprise
RCA decided to close.
And at the time I think they were following suit.
What the CBS Records did.
It was kind of a shock
we're all sitting there working.
And then we're told, you know, a month from now
it's no longer gonna be in existence.
First, I tried to go out and get a loan
and buy a new system.
The people who bought the studio
they bought the new lays that I was working on.
So we had the old lays that I first started cutting
on when I came out here
and it was sitting in the room idle, wasn't being used.
So I went to my boss at the time and said,
"Hey, can I buy the system?"
And he kinda looked at me and said,
"Yeah nobody, it's not going any place.
The new people aren't interested in that."
They pretty much almost gave it to me.
I think I paid like $10,000 for the whole thing
including tape machine, monitors, equalizers, some amps
the McIntosh amps that are probably worth that much alone.
When we closed down the reference point
I moved into Hollywood into a pressing plant
a place called Coralic Engineering Manufacturing.
Then there was a big boom from there.
I mean, it was so much fun.
This Macola Records with the pressing plant
and really they blew up.
They didn't know how to handle, you know
hit after hit was coming in there.
It was just one, you know, one hit group after another.
And I remember my first rap artist Ice-T
and at that time, I didn't know who Ice-T really was,
he'd come in and start talking.
And I said
"What is this?"
'Cause he talked exactly the way he rap.
It was just the rhythm and the flow.
And it was, you know, and that was really different.
And that was my first introduction
to pretty much hip hop and rap.
And he'd come in on a weekly basis
and I cut a dub from the music
and then he'd go out and do the live show,
playing what we call dab.
And a lot of my work was doing that kind of stuff.
I had cutting with DJs, cutting dubs,
mastering the hip hop and the dance and electronic music.
I was busy and it was a lot of fun.
- Richard's clientele, heavily relied on West Coast hip hop
house music, electronic music, and the punk rock
and Indie bands that were still cutting records
because major labels, weren't cutting records at all that.
So I got to be involved in a lot of cool records
and it was always fun to see, you know
DJs coming in, you know, like hours
before show and we're cutting dubplates for their show.
And, you know, Richard cut all the local hip hop stuff
everything from alcoholics to,
and back in the eighties he cut all the Geto Boy stuff,
Cool Keith, first end of the year EP
like all this legendary hip hop stuff that I loved.
Being a master engineer the only thing I can compare it to
and I joke with a few friends of mine in the industry
and I've said it before, but I feel like
the kid that wanted to be an astronaut that got to be.
I mean, it's a dream job.
We sit here and we listen to amazing music all day
and help the artist push that last bit, you know
over the finish line.
- [Rusty] With around 1400 independent vinyl stores
in America alone, you can get your hands
on your favorite records with relative ease.
Thanks to it's ever growing popularity, vinylmania
spread worldwide, even in corners of the world
you might not expect.
(instrumental music)
- I'm Pilak Bhatt and I'm from Mumbai.
And we have a small record shop
called Music Circle in Mumbai.
I was fascinated by music right
from my childhood because my parents
were very much into music, you know, music levels.
And we would often attend concerts
by chance like Ravi Shankar, Alia Parkan.
My uncle, he had a great collection of music.
He was a great record collector.
You can say, music is in my blood.
I've been in this business for the last 15 years.
You know, when the series game
a lot of people started giving away their violence.
So I thought okay,
this is a good time, actually, because I knew
that vinyl sound is much better than the CD sound.
So I thought this is a good time to collect vinyls.
So that time I was not thinking of business
as such, but, you know, being passionate about music
I wanted to have the vinyls, you know
so I collected a lot of vinyls during that time.
Naturally, then it grew over the years
and today I have a huge collection of vinyls as you can see.
There was a record store called Rhythm House in Mumbai.
That was the biggest in Mumbai.
And my main reason of entry or going
into this vinyl thing is because I love the vinyl sound.
It is an analog sound.
It is a very pure, natural, warm sound.
And compared to series and MP3s, which are, you know
kind of a compromised format,
younger days I used to listen to a lot of Beetles.
And then over the years, my tastes will change a little bit.
Then I got into groups like Santana,
Pink Flyod, Dire Straits
all the classic rock groups, you know
and when you listen to these guys, you know,
they have a profound influence on you
because they change your life forever, you know.
(sensational music)
Previously, I was working
with my brother in the metal business.
And when I turned 50, I thought I must do what I love to do.
I must get involved into the business
of what I really like to do.
You know, but every record has a little story behind it.
You know, there are a lot of sentiments,
emotions also attached to buying records
and those records I will never sell
because those are like special to me
and gifted by someone to me.
So my philosophy for music is,
you just don't stick to one genre,
be open-minded and listen to all kinds of music.
There is African music.
There is Arabic music.
There is Latin music to be discovered.
So this is my advice to the youth also,
don't just stick to one kind of music,
listen to music with open mind.
Basically I'm in this music business because of my passion
not because of money or not because of the number of records
or I want to touch one like figure or anything.
I'm basically very passionate music lover.
That's how I am in this business.
(sensational music)
For me the music is not just about selling records
but it is a way of life.
Music is my life.
So I'll always be associated with music.
(gentle music)
- [Rusty] To so many people, record collecting
has become something of a lifestyle rather than just a hobby
but where are these records we're dying
to get our hands on?
The term rare records might conjure up images
of prehistorical obscure albums that feel
almost unobtainable to the average listener
but there are many factors that go
into making a record rare.
And some of them are not as far out, as you might imagine.
- We've had rare things like The Beatles Butchers cover.
You know, we've had, you know, rare jazz things.
- I have some good stories of finding rare records.
- Found all kinds of things.
People have been selling us stuff back for 30 years
and you you never know what's coming in
and what it is and...
- The rarest record,
we've got a few, but I guess the most rare record
is we had a 45, a Motley Crue, Girls, Girls, Girls
45, that was a promo edition that was only given out
at their kickoff of that tour in Las Vegas,
that show they passed out 1000 of them.
- I bought, I think it was Bon Jovi.
I bought a 45, my mom let me buy a 45 at a records tour
in Decatur, Illinois, where I was when I was young.
And so I was old enough where vinyl
was still kind of phasing out.
- Rarity is one of those odd things,
because a rare record to some is like,
"Oh my God, I found this Debbie Gibson record
that I've never found before."
And, you know, to somebody that's a really rare thing.
You know, the market's always changing.
And the rarity of things always changes as well.
- I saw this album come up as the Wailers, you know
it was like definitely not Bob Marley and the Wailers.
And I actually went past it at first.
And then I backed up
and there is this beautiful brand new
not wrapped but it was a brand new copy.
- That was one of the shockers.
I mean, we're very well versed
in what most, everything is valued at.
And we do know like high dollar, regular high dollar records
and things, what to look for that was probably
one of the big surprises because we had really,
we knew it was worth something
but it wasn't very obvious in the beginning.
- Our record is only really with,
or someone to pay for it anyway.
And yet, you know, it's already well sticking it down
for 1500 pounds, but how many people
after you get in 1500 pound?
And I've had a couple of Please Please Me
as Black and Gold, and which about decent prices
full but they're rare,
you know, you don't see them that often.
They don't come in that often.
- Nobody's ever seen this, but this is worth
a hundred dollars.
They have to believe us, right?
- Most of the rare records that are found,
I mostly got here.
- The more interesting, rare records that have come
across are the ones that weren't rare
at my own collection
that came to be rare later on.
- In Japan I had these things called the eight bands
which are like these little tiny records.
And the vinyls were about the size of like the vinyl label.
And they had like tiny mini
like record players playing them on
of course the sound wasn't great,
but they were kind of cute when you look to them.
But I think the food buyers, and I know that
the white stripes actually released like rare eight bands
and they sold them at shows and things like that.
But they're crazy
but there's something about them that's just cool.
- I think the rarest record I have someone
actually gave to me, which is kind of weird,
at the time the record wasn't,
it became valuable since they gave it to me.
At the time it was just like, here's this record I made.
- Basically I had started my collection so early.
They were still $2 before my employee discount.
And you just buy up whatever.
It didn't matter if you knew what it was.
And then years later I'm like, "Oh, that's worth $200."
- I know my parents personally
they've been a lot more interested
in finding records for us.
And so my mom's like a, she's a big garage sale person.
She goes like every week.
And so, every time she goes out
she's always looking for records for us.
- I just started flipping through the records anyway.
And I found John Carpenter, Halloween soundtrack on vinyl.
And that one, I looked it up
and it was of course the going rate
for a record is what people will pay.
But it looked like
what found it was a $300 record for 99 cents.
So, that was a pretty good deal.
- [Rusty] Signed the originals
of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
have gone for a whopping 290K price tag.
It's also said the Ringo Starr's own copy
of the first ever pressing
of The Beatles white album is worth
somewhere around $700,000,
but that's nothing compared
to the jaw-dropping $2 million price tag
on Wu Tang Clan's album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,
which was supposedly only pressed a vinyl once.
This copy was so prestigious
that upon purchase, the buyer was forbidden
from selling this copy for an 88 year time period.
- Val, you know, the founder and original owner worked
at Capitol Records when The Beatles came out
and was called down on her day off to strip Butcher covers.
So, I mean, that's the big one, and everyone always asked
why didn't you snag one of those, they're worth a fortune.
- This one is a Sunroll record that is handmade
but cutting up shower curtains are just one of the kind.
- If you're aware of it
but there's something called Record Store Day
and Record Store Day
actually the third Record Store Day is this Saturday.
So we're preparing for it.
There's boxes and boxes of unreleased tracks
in here that we're preparing for.
And what they did was a came out,
the records that come out
come out usually in limited presses
but the big one is an April every year.
And it's to support Andy record shops.
And they would do with these special releases
only for that day.
They might re-issue them later,
but not with a special packaging or the special color
or it might be only for that day
and never be reissued in that.
- And they make it exclusive to independent record stores
which makes it super cool.
'Cause then people just, they want to drive traffic
back into record stores and keep those places around.
(sensational music)
- After the war, a source of 1947
my mother's brother came out of the air force
and bought this shop to,
well at the time I think it's sold a bits
of everything it's of.
We used to sell fancy goods, cigarettes
and things like that.
1950, he found another shop not far away
his wife's thought of, like this older building.
So, and I'm talking of 1950 and then sort of 1951
she bought it off in for 400 and something quids
where with all the stock, a lot of which was,
as I say there were strange fancy goods and that
but we also used to sell 78s.
My mother started work
I think that she sold their first record when she was 30.
(gentle music)
I've always been in a record shop
I bought the one in Old Swan in 1961.
So I was always around records.
I used to come and help my mom from about 1980.
Used to drop in after work
'cause I was actually a mail man for the Valley Shore.
So I do get up at four in the morning
and go and do a bit of,
I wasn't asking to drive in the thing I was helping.
And then after there,
'cause it was only around the corner
coming up a cup of tea with me now,
and then I just started helping out.
And so I've sort of been there ever since.
It's very annoying when they come in
and tell you where they,
"Oh, I've just bought this from such and such a place."
Do I care? (laughs)
Yeah, people that nice
I mean, we've got loads of regular customers
and they're all really nice people
and I am so yeah, wouldn't change it for the world.
- [Rusty] The undeniable sound of Viner was proven itself
many times over, but there's also a visual appeal.
For many fans and collectors alike
the artwork has sealed it's own place
within the vinyl phenomenon.
(instrumental music)
- You look up the cover and you look at the photos
and the artwork that they did...
- The record covers are bigger, like a 12 by 12 thing.
- The image is big, you can read it.
It's a good thing.
- I like the idea.
Being able to read all the technical stuff
who is the engineer, who are the players
who were on the record, all that
you get all of that with your vinyl.
- The works large and sometimes they're gatefold sleeves
that you can open and there's more work inside.
There's lyrics printed on the inner sleeve or whatever.
- And the great artwork,
it really is a big part of the listening process.
It's like people didn't make records
and just throw any old image up.
There's a reason why they did it.
So you get this experience.
- For a designer,
it can be really frustrating because you know
as any artists would say, you put all this effort
into this image and this artwork.
And of course, vinyl is like the ultimate.
'Cause you've got the big artwork.
You can really see what's going on.
But then of course, CDs came out
and you're like opening the booklet.
And you're like, okay, this is okay.
I can kind of deal with this,
still just about see it.
And then now it's like, we're reduced to like a thumbnail
on like Spotify looking at it like,
"What is that?"
You know?
So it's a shame really that the artwork isn't as prominent
you know, 'cause they're just reduced the size.
- Visually, records have always drawn to the cover art
in the fifties when it was instrumental records, you know
that even they would sometimes the classical records
they would take paintings.
You know, like in, you know
there are some Jackie Gleason records
that have a Salvador Dali cover, you know
and Andy Warhol was a cover artist
and did a lot artists for jazz records as well.
- I mean, I think truthfully, some people
might not even have a turntable,
but they buy records
'cause they want the artwork, they want the lyrics
they want the poster, hanging up.
- Sometimes I'll take the artwork out of the albums
and you can't do that with a computer.
So I'll take, like I have this purple rain record
that's got this great poster of Prince and The Revolution.
I'll put that up behind me.
- I met this amazing book that my mum and dad had
that I was just completely obsessed with.
I would just like open up, read it like every day.
Its by Storm Thorgerson
who designed a lot of the album covers
and it was just an archive
like a giant collection of all these classic covers
on vinyl and it was vinyl size.
And it was incredible.
I just remember going through it, you know, read it
rereading it, looking at the note that just blew my mind.
- I remember getting kissed alive too as well.
Never happened before though.
Wow, I mean open the cover and explosions
and everything on the in the inner sleeve, fantastic.
- Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica,
and see the cover with the crazy fish head
I'm like, what the hell is this?
And I just bought it.
And so I got into a lot of music
because I just took a risk on it based on the album art.
- The covers are worth more than the record.
A lot of times, like this is a pretty special jazz record.
- Johnny Hallyday, Reve et Amour, dream and love.
But it's fantastic because it's kind of really catching
over the top, but it has all these little Johnny's
wearing all these little medallions.
We've got Marlon Brando, we've got little Richard as a king.
- When they put the name
of the band on the bottom of the album.
So when you're flicking through you miss it
you don't know who it is.
And some of these strange bands
they get this design of their name.
Can you read this?
(instrumental music)
I mean, it's funny.
I always thought one of the worst album covers
in the world was Love Beach by Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
You've got the three of them standing on the beach.
I mean, it's about as far from Prague as you can get.
And it's just that, would they have sung better
if they had the best of cover?
Possibly, who knows?
- And then my mum and dad's records,
we would have two copies of everything,
one was mom's, one was dad's
and dad's was always in really good condition.
And mum's was always like really like covered
in like burn holes and ash.
And it was just, you know,
and so unknown sort of brown stains
that just appeared out of nowhere
but then dad's would be pristine,
but mum's just looked like
she got out of the rubbish or something.
- I have found records, I've opened up records
and I'll open and seeds come rolling out.
I only can guess that
it's just great because maybe it's something
about rolling it up against a right angle
or something like that.
I have to ask my parents
'cause one of the records I'm talking about
it was their record,
so I don't know if they'd give me a truthful answer now.
Time changes people, but...
- We've had album covers
and we've sort of opened them up on this bare marks
and all sorts and you know, even LPs with bare marks on.
So they've obviously been smoking something at the time.
- [Man] Maybe you're already stoned
and you're looking at that inside cover
with all that great artwork,
totally mind blowing experience.
(echo sound)
(sensational music)
- My name is Shayne Blakeley.
I'm from Saginaw, Michigan originally.
And I've been Val's go-to guy for almost 20 years.
Basically I worked at a different music store
in Michigan before I moved to CD store.
And at the time high fidelity was new
and not nearly as creepy as it is now.
And I saw John Cusack in that and decided
that I had to kind of be that guy
and own my own record store in Chicago.
Things worked out in such a way that I was able to move here
and attempt to do that.
I only went to open a bank account in Logan Square
and my banker was like, "Oh, you gotta meet my friend Val."
And she sent me from there
to Oak Park to meet Val who was intimidating as hell
right off the get go, but gave her my very formal resume.
She demanded that I return it handwritten
in my own words with profanity and then called me back
for part-time work shortly after,
that same day two different people
put in their two weeks notice.
I went full time on my first day.
And then I was the sole employee from 2006 on.
We're one of the few record stores that have been around
through the peaks and valleys of the industry in general,
where, when Val opened up
it was in the glory years.
And her favorite quote was that,
on any given week
for my older teenagers in the neighborhood.
She got every dollar
except for maybe a little pot and a pair of jeans.
That was what the universe was.
That's where you spent your money.
That was the entertainment industry.
(sensational music)
Most of the records that we bring in are brought
to us, you know, customers come in every single day
you know, "Do you buy records?
Do you take in donations?
Do you like trade ins, things like that?"
which is, you know, that makes up the bulk of it.
We also order new product from several different places.
Time was way before my era
in my parents' era and throughout Val's legacy
that was the thing is,
you didn't get to, you know,
get on zoom or whatever and play call of duty
with your friends.
Somebody bought the new Led Zeppelin album
you met in that person's basement.
You maybe got high if you're, you know
if you had cool parents or parents that were oblivious
and you listened to that album front to back,
examined all of the liner notes
and you argued with the band themselves
over the track placement, you know,
this should have been on, you know
if this was on side A, this would have been perfect
but you know, as a result.
So it's a communal experience,
not only with your friends,
but with the record itself, with the band
I have a lot of favorite parts of the vinyl business.
Obviously I've been doing this a long time,
but it is always gonna be interacting
with the customers and talking music.
I hope the future for vinyl records look sunshiny.
'Cause obviously I've been here a long time
and I have no hope of leaving.
I don't know what I would do otherwise.
So yeah, keep it up folks.
(sensational music)
- You know, DJs and producers were already collecting
and spinning funk jazz soul by the late nineties
you know, I thought, okay, well, you know
I had 10,000 records in my house already.
For 40 years, 50 years, you know
that was the medium, how people listen to music.
I mean, I can't imagine if there were no records,
like how people would be listening to music.
You know, for me, that was the first thing that I touched.
Now, we've been through tape.
I mean, you know, we survived the tapes
and the CDs and deck machines and all that kind
of digital now, but vinyl, you know, it's still around.
I think, you know, in my opinion,
it's not that hard artifact, you know,
that, you know, you feel
and you smell and you have in your living room, you know
it's something that it kind of forces you to listen
to the music, every track you don't just skip through them.
I was just at a coffee shop, you know
five minutes before I saw you.
You know, and the guy was saying,
"I really miss my record collection back home."
And you never hear that with CDs.
You know, it's always records, right?
For me, a digging was just
it's the concept of trying to find unknown tracks, you know
that other people don't have.
Producers always wanna be sampling
and DJ is gonna be playing tracks that other guys don't.
And that's how you differentiate yourself, right?
So we have a digging station in Ohio, right
where it's managed by my business partner,
Mmazi and his staff.
And we dig every day, you know
because of technology, you know, in competition,
I can't be traveling to every city anymore.
So we decided that look, you know
we're gonna concentrate
in one area that we did well and that's Ohio.
And so we we've been concentrating probably
for 20 years now.
We've been digging out Ohio, but I've always kind of kept
to the notion that my personal records are separate
than my business records.
I went on a buying trip for six months
to the states looking for records for the shop only.
So we go out there, but because of U.S.
America is so segregated and so polarized.
It's really dangerous to go
to certain neighborhoods if you're a minority
and we're in minority owned business.
So, you know, we get to see people's homes
and how they collected these things for 40 years.
How did you come up with 3000 records in your house
you know, from the sixties, why did you buy this record?
You know, this is a,
there's a lot of historical records out there, you know
not just the music, but there's literature, records
there's political records, things like that.
So we're really interested in that kind of stuff too.
10 years ago, it was pretty scary.
I think that's one of the reasons why Record Store Day
started in April, right?
'Cause April and maybe October, November
is the slowest part of the year.
So, you know, so many record stores are going on a business.
You know, you gotta trend is probably the worst thing
you can have for retail store.
You know, you never wanna be trending, right.
Because there's always an ups and down, you know
you always wanna be consistent, you know,
don't try to sell as many hamburgers like McDonald's does
you know that's not,
just because you're selling million hamburgers
doesn't mean you're the best, right?
It's not the best quality, try to look for quality.
You know, I think that's how we have to keep going
and to survive.
- [Rusty] Now, before anything can be reborn
sadly it has to fade away first.
Was Sony's decision to stop the production of vinyl
back in 1989, really to blame for the fall of the record,
or was it just a natural progression of the ongoing saga
of home entertainment and audio consumerism.
Much like when grunge killed Hair Metal
from one desk to another
it was about to be proven that even vinyl was replaceable.
(soul music)
- Vinyl was really the only thing there was for a long time
and then, I'm gonna guess, I think in the late eighties
but from my experience, it was maybe about 88, 89 90
CD started coming along.
- In he nineties, you know,
kids I think the advent of the CD, you know,
and like I said they opened,
Oh man, you're always the only old man music.
- Like the late eighties
I remember reading articles when I was in school.
And I remember seeing like the fall of record stores.
- Everyone dumped their vinyl and started buying CDs.
- [Mark] Phillips announced the next best thing
to live music, compact disk.
(crowd chants)
Compact disk, another sensation.
- It was supposed to be the best, you know
they're indestructible and they're super clean
and they'll never wear out.
- Record sales declined at major chain stores, you know,
back in mid eighties to early nineties
mostly because the chain stores gave up on it.
- I never dumped my vinyl off by just added CDs
to my collection
- A lot of labels weren't even releasing vinyl anymore.
- CDs and actually cassettes
took over popularity about 1985 or so.
And people forget that there was a small window
from about 85 to 87
the cassette was actually the biggest format
'cause people had boom boxes.
They played them in their car.
♪ You really feel the music with the Sony Walkman ♪
- [Commercial Reporter] The Sony Walkman
is a tiny stereo cassette player
with truly incredible sound.
(gentle music)
♪ You really feel it ♪
- [Commercial Reporter] Put on a Walkman
and see the world and our whole new light.
The Walkman from Sony, the one and only.
- That was 95, it was just about dads.
I mean, that's why you pay one pound plus
for the latest first album.
If you find that original, because nobody bought it.
- It's squeezed out because of the profitability
at the major chains that it's like while we make more money
in less space off of these CDs than we do off of records.
- I'm not sure if there was a time when bands
just never made vinyl, it was only CDs and cassettes.
There might've been some vinyl still produced
a large part of the nineties, a large chunk of the nineties
and early mid two thousands seems like the only thing
people did were CDs.
For a while there were CDs and cassettes
'cause cassette was still a viable form,
but then CDs just completely took over.
And you're hard pressed for lack of a better word.
You were hard pressed to find vinyl.
- vinyl was kind of in the sort of the dark ages
of the nineties where CDs had sort of taken over.
- [Rusty] Some purists felt like listening to music
on CD was like cheating on their beloved vinyl.
And the compare disks new found high fidelity
was simply Sonic infidelity.
- [Commercial Reporter] Music stores across Australia
are drastically overstock
with hundreds of great compact discs
from the world's finest artists at very special low prices.
- Streaming music, I can't play a record in my car.
You know, I play CDs, I stream, I have Spotify.
A lot of times I need
I wanna hear something before I buy it, you know?
And so I'm gonna listen to it that way
before I spend, you know, $30 on a record.
So I've no problems with that being the go-to.
What I don't like about it is the lack
of money that the artists get from it.
Of course, the sound quality I can tell a huge difference
but my ear is trained to at this point.
And that's what people are learning or finding out.
- You know, people like to think
that there's other record stores around here.
Are we in direct competition?
We're all friends, we're in competition with Amazon.
We're in competition with video games, more than anything
you look at any kind
of new video game that takes like 50 hours to complete.
If you're good, well, that used to be spent, you know
analyzing the liner notes of a Led Zeppelin.
(gentle music)
- Well, this is an interesting time to be interviewed
about this because as of last Friday
one of two companies that created the vinyl blanks
that we use to cut masters
there were two companies, was Apollo, Transco
and Bannon in California and MDC in Japan.
Apollo supplied 80% of the lacquer blanks to the world.
And they were wiped out Thursday
and early Friday in a devastating fire.
They are completely gone.
So this is an odd time to be doing this.
'Cause right now, a lot of us in this industry are unsure
what's gonna happen.
So there may be shortages in the industry.
There may be people that have a really hard time
getting their records cut, moving forward
for a little while, until another company steps
up to fill the void to start making blank lacquers
which is an extremely difficult process.
(gentle music)
- The biggest issue that concerns me
is the thing that I already brought up
which is that the production sort of problems
have been a thing.
And I worry, you know, people wanna come in here
and get something.
And if we don't have it, you know,
customers don't understand,
they don't care about production issues.
They don't think about that kind of stuff.
I mean, some people do, but generally,
like if I go to the grocery store and they don't have bread
I'm not gonna like ask them why they don't.
I'm just gonna like walk out and be like annoyed.
Do you know what I mean?
And that's what I think would happen here too.
You know, some people might ask, but generally
people are gonna be like, why doesn't anybody have this?
Like, it's super annoying.
And I could see people like, just being like,
you know what, I'm just gonna like, stream this stuff
and put again like I said, we're out of a couple of things
but we've got all this other stuff.
So I don't know.
I don't really see any end to it soon
right now it's just, you know,
like I said, each year it keeps going up, so...
- [Rusty] In a consumer's world where fans
have to have lots of everything,
a world with fats, trends and a love for toys.
It was inevitable that vinyl would return.
MRCs data confirms that as of the year 2020 vinyl attributed
to 27% of album sales in the U.S. alone
and asked for the U.K. vinyl sales
have been at their highest since the early nineties.
It's not only a great time for music lovers.
It's a great time for up and coming artists
and bands who until now saw the idea
of having their own music released on vinyl,
as nothing more than a pipe dream
reserved for high flyers on major labels.
With the rise of the internet and social media,
vinyl fans and collectors from all over the world
can finally be brought together
to truly realize their love for the medium.
- I hate to call it a resurgence 'cause for me
it never went away.
- It never went away.
That's the first thing.
It never actually went away.
It just slowed down.
- Vinyl, it's a strange art.
The stories that they were writing back in the nineties
were, "Oh, vinyl's dead.
When are they gonna stop making vinyl?"
Here we are 25 years later
from when they were writing those stories.
At that time vinyl wasn't dying.
It was dying out at the major chain stores,
like the Musicland and...
- People love anything that's like retro.
And I think that kind of vintage retro thing
is really popular and it's trendy.
And I think that's helped to accelerate, you know
the rise of vinyl again.
- [Pete] No one really cared about CDs.
CDs were cool because you could put a bunch in an envelope
and take them your car.
And they were portable, but they weren't.
There was nothing sexy about them.
No, one's excited about the 3000 CDs they have
on a rack in their living room.
No one cares about that.
- Streaming, downloading and all of that
really just murdered the CD and made the record
look all the more attractive
and it largely with bragging rights.
And of course the sound was better
because, of course it was better.
- As the CD market crashed,
that changed for vinyl, but the vinyl sales
were always going strong.
There were always people that were looking for vinyl.
It just wasn't a story that was talked bout.
- In mid two thousands it slowly started picking back up.
- I don't vinyl is a fad that's going away.
I think it's the last tangible product
that's gonna make any sense.
- It was just like a slow build back up.
And then probably maybe 2009 to 2010.
It really, the boom really started.
- I hope that vinyl does sail around for a long time
not because I have a record store,
but really because there's something really magical
about records.
- [Patrick] If you would have asked me like 10 years ago
like how long do you think this is gonna last?
I don't know that I would have said,
yeah, in 2020 we're still gonna be selling more
than we did the previous year.
Here We are.
- When I was telling somebody
that I was considering starting a vinyl pressing plant
they were kind of like,
well why wouldn't somebody purchase vinyl?
And I was like, well, you know
to physically own your music.
And they're like, you know,
'cause when I grew up,
fans of music and I've been a radio DJ
since I was in high school.
And so I've always been associated with music.
It was a big deal when you said,
yeah I own that record
or you know, I bought that record when it came out
or I remember the day I bought those three records, right?
Like that's a big thing.
- Yeah, vinyl revival is no joke.
I mean, it's got, it sounded like Wikipedia link.
It's like registered as a real phenomenon.
- There's always fear of formats
and format changes as to what what's gonna change.
When cassettes came out, people were concerned
that you know, there were the stickers at home
taping is killing the music business and, you know
downloading is killing the music business
but there are people that like to buy music
and like to physically own music.
- No one's gonna come out with another physical format
that people are gonna appreciate as much as vinyl.
So vinyl is a analog reproduction of your record.
And I think there's something that's just sexy about that,
that people love.
- With vinyl you do get the full experience.
I mean, as a kid, I grew up with vinyl
not because it was my era.
I was from like the tape and CD era
but it's all my parents had.
But when you open it up and you know, you get the gate bowed
and you see like, you know, the images
and the liner notes, and then you take the vinyl out
and you know, blow the dust off, put it on.
So I can experience.
- But I think it's gonna be a while before it goes away.
I really do.
And it's an investment.
- There will always be people
that wanna physically own music.
I think it's because, you know, it gives you a connection
to the artist, to the musicians you love.
- You know, if you had told me that we would outlast
like Tower Records and Virgin Records
and I would never have believed it.
- In the five years, it's probably been
at least eight new plants, new operations
that have opened up.
And some of them doing a really good job.
- We're dealing with local independent bands.
I can tell you, 15 years ago
local independent bands were pressing vinyl in this town.
So to me, 15 years from now, local independent bands
and labels are still going
to be pressing vinyl in this town.
- I don't see people just in their forties
and fifties and sixties and beyond buying records.
I see a lot of young people buying records.
They make really affordable record players now
that are less than a hundred dollars.
So I think that a new generation of people
are buying records.
And I think that it could hopefully last a really long time
if they are excited about buying records.
- I hope it grows and grows and keeps going
because I think it's nice for people to have options.
I think it's a shame that a format that's just older
has to disappear and people can go,
"Well, no you can't listen to this anymore."
So it's nice to have the option.
It's nice that people have spoken up and they've said,
"Hey, we love vinyl, you know, bring it back."
And it's back, so...
- Got a lovely little lousy.
I don't know, it was supposed to be about 12, 13
comes in when they start label screen
he's been buying all the clean stuff.
- A younger generation,
you know, the difference between that era in the nineties
kids used to come in, they'd open the door and like,
"Oh man it's just records"
and locked right back out.
Nowadays, kids open door like,
"Oh man, it's only records, it's so cool."
- The minute people stop coming in here asking us questions
at Christmas about what kind
of turntable they need to buy their significant other
or their child or whatever for Christmas.
Then that's when we know it's going away.
And so far that hasn't happened.
(gentle music)
- [Rusty] So there is vinyl in a nutshell,
we've talked to the fans, the collectors and the experts.
And we're not convinced
that our beloved LP will be going anywhere anytime soon.
As vinyl sales continue to rise, the music plays on.
Of course audio technology is a never ending,
ever evolving concept
that's not likely to slow down anytime soon.
For some of us however,
just can't imagine a world without records.
And why should we?
As long as the juxbox has life in it
our vinyl records will be spinning
for a very long time.
(sensational music)